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Baptism and Regeneration J.I

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Baptism and Regeneration J.I BAPTISM AND REGENERATION J.I. Packer, August 2013 The practice of Holy Baptism as a rite of admission to church communion is integral to Anglicanism. So it as has been throughout the church, with very few exceptions, from the start. Each version of the Book of Common Prayer has contained a baptismal liturgy that all have used; nineteenth century disputes between rival schools of thought about particular phrases in the set service did not affect its universal acceptance. This essay attempts to clear the ground for putting together a similarly acceptable baptismal liturgy for use in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), hopefully with theological agreement on all key points. Baptism – a Sacrament Mainstream Christianity views all created entities in a way for which the technical term is sacramentally: that is, as symbols reflecting God and imparting a sense of the divine that draws mind and heart Godward in adoring appreciation. Romans 1:19-20 tells us that this is how our maker meant it to be from the start. All perceptions of beauty, truth, love and value will bring positive recognition of God’s being, goodness and power, save where sin in the heart keeps us from getting the message. It is against this background that God has instituted specific rites (actions done with created things) linked with specific words whereby he attest what the specific acts symbolize, and so confirms promises to, and furthers fellowship with, the recipients of his saving and enriching mercy. The Bible sets before us four such rites, which most of the church through most of its life has called sacraments. (The Latin sacramentum means, in general, a holy thing, and in particular, an oath of loyalty.) Two of these rites were given to God’s Old Testament covenant people, Abraham’s offspring, the Jews; the other two are now given to God’s New Testament covenant people, the church, that is to say all those everywhere who have faith in Jesus Christ as their God, Savior, Lord and Leader. Each of these two pairs consists of a rite of initiation and commencement plus a rite of commemoration and continuance. Circumcision and Baptism are initiatory rites; Passover and the Lord’s Supper (also called Eucharist, Holy Communion, and Mass) were prescribed for regular repetition. The Bible makes it clear that observance of each rite has been given fundamental status in the faithful worship of God, but that for New Testament Christians, including believing Jews, Baptism and the Supper have replaced Circumcision and Passover, both being tokens of the new reality of life in Christ. 1 The Bible presents God’s covenant as essentially an imposed enactment of promise and claim, corresponding to the suzerainty settlements that Mideast potentates in the ancient world imposed on conquered nations. In the Old Testament God frequently formulates his covenant thus: “I will be your God; you shall be my people” – a sentence that might be called the covenant slogan, or motto. The new covenant that Christ’s death brought in (see Luke 22:20; 2 Cor. 3; Heb. 8-9) is a second edition of the covenant that God made with Israel through Abraham and Moses; the promise of protection and preservation, implicit in “I will be your God,” and the claim of obedient submission implicit in “you shall be my people,” remain unchanged, but the mediatorial monarchy of the man Christ Jesus, and present bestowal of transforming life from God through him via the Holy Spirit, have been added, and so has the revelation of the covenant God’s triunity as the Father, the Son and the Spirit, three persons inseparable but distinct, operation as a team for our salvation. All this is reflected in the marching orders with which Jesus commissioned his disciples after his resurrection: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into (ESV mg.) the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt. 28:18-20). It was under these orders that the apostles began their evangelistic work on Pentecost morning, after the Spirit was poured out, and they remain in force for the continuing covenant community (that is, the whole world church) at all times. Anglican Article 25, “Of the Sacraments,” begins by saying: “Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession of but rather” – the nuance is primarily – “they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him.” It is against this background that we must reason the closing sentence of Article 27, “Of Baptism,” which states: “The Baptism of young children is in any case to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.” Infant baptism, here affirmed as a permanent ingredient in Anglican church life, is not mentioned in the New Testament, but is warranted by the following biblical facts: First, Circumcision, to which Baptism, its replacement, corresponds, was as we saw the Old Testament rite of entry into the covenant community, and God commanded that it be administered to Jewish boys as eight-day-old infants (Gen. 17:12-13), the parental instruction following at a later stage (Ex. 12:26-27, 13:8, 14; Dt. 6:20-25, 11:19-21). 2 Second, the solidarity in God’s covenant of children with parents is assumed throughout Scripture, from God’s commitment to be the God of Abraham and his offspring (Gen 17:7-80), through Peter’s Pentecostal declaration in Jerusalem that “the promise is for you and your children” (Acts 2:39), to Paul’s argument that the truth that a Christian’s children in a mixed marriage are “holy” (consecrated to and accepted by God with the parent) shows that God accepts the marriage and does not want it dissolved (1 Cor. 7:13-14). Third, Jesus had little children brought to him, embraced and blessed them, and declared them models for adult faith (Mk. 10:13-16). Fourth, it is unrealistic, if not actually evasive, to suppose that when the apostles and others baptized households (Act 16:15, 31-34; I Cor. 1:16) there were no very young children in any of the families. In light of all this, and in the absence of any hint that Jesus or his apostles challenged the assumption of family solidarity that operated in rabbinic theology and Jewish proselyte baptism, the commendation of infant baptism in Article 25 seems to be fully justified. Baptism – an Event What then happens in baptism? What does administering this sacrament achieve? All the New Testament statements that bear on this question are made with reference to adult candidates, who having professed faith and repentance Christ-ward are receiving the rite, as Article 25 puts it, “rightly” pursuing this perspective, the Article affirms: Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from other that be not christened [the authoritative Latin says, more clearly, “are not Christians”], but it is also a sign of Regeneration or New birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. In sum, then, Article 27 tells us that (1) Baptism is truly a sign of Christian identity, but (2) is primarily a sign of regeneration (new birth), and (3) is a means of regeneration (“instrument” signifying not a tool, but a legal deed of conveyance) under five aspects: (i) incorporation of a person into the church; (ii) ratification to the person of God’s promised forgiveness of sins; (iii) 3 ratification also of God’s promised adoption of the person as son and heir; (iv) confirmation of the person’s faith; (v) and augmenting of grace in the person’s heart. Now, to undergird, frame and contextualize this sixteen-century Reformational statement, we add to it as follows: The rite of Holy Baptism, being a sacrament, a divinely prescribed action with words, is a momentous event. It is a two-way covenanting occasion, at which both God and the candidate publicly pledge themselves to each other. The candidate is put under water, by immersion or pouring, in order then to be brought out and up from under, as we might say; this symbolizes union with the Lord Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection, and newness of life through, with, and in him, and the washing of sin’s guilt and defilement (dirtiness) away from God’s sight. The ritual exhibits these blessings pictorially and unconditionally extended to the candidate, who is to receive them by penitent faith – that is, submissive covenanting trust in Jesus Christ; and this is pictured by passively undergoing the minister’s action with the water. Article 27 identifies this two-way covenanting and its five-fold consequence as regeneration and new birth, and this arguably matches New Testament usage, as we shall now see. Regeneration and New Birth In the New Testament, “regeneration” and “new birth” are not technical terms (words, that is, of precise meaning, positively, negatively and comprehensively defined) in the way that, for instance, the language of justification becomes technical terminology in Paul.
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